Wessex League

When the Pyramid of football was built in the early-to mid 1980s,
the Hampshire League was designated as one of the nine feeders to the
Southern League. The gap between county league football and the Southern
League was eventually considered too large, and an intermediate level
was introduced with the formation of the Wessex League in 1986, taking
it's members not just from Hampshire but from adjacent counties such
as Wiltshire, Dorset, and West Sussex amongst others.

Bashley from the New Forest were the first champions, and in fact won all
three championships they contested before moving to the Southern League.
Since their departure, it took until 2011 for the triple-championship to
be achieved again when Poole Town won the league for a third successive year.

Wessex League clubs have frequently been prominent in the F.A. Vase,
Wimborne Town taking the trophy at Wembley in 1993, beating the holders, Yorkshire
side Guiseley in a phenomenal final, 5-3. Eleven years later, free-scoring
Winchester City claimed the Vase for the Wessex League for the second time,
triumphing 2-0 over AFC Sudbury of the Eastern Counties League in a match
played at Birmingham City's St Andrews ground. No Wessex League club has yet
made the first round proper of the F.A. Cup - four times the fourth qualifying
round has been reached (twice by AFC Lymington, once each by Romsey Town and Thatcham Town),
but on each occasion qualification for the first round proved elusive.

The league expanded to three divisions in 2004, following a merger with the
Hampshire League but dropped the third division three years later.
The structure below the Wessex league in Hampshire in
the future is yet to be determined, although the Dorset Combination
will remain a feeder to Division One as the Wessex League sits at Step 5 and 6 in the
National League System.